Thursday, May 23, 2013

Towards the end of his career, John Ford directed the
occasional TV show as well as his great Western movies. He used to slam Ward Bond for the low quality of Bond's Wagon Train, while at the same time claiming never to have seen a TV Western in his life. But that was Ford for you. In 1960 Ford was at a loose end and undergoing an IRS investigation. No wonder he put aside his principles and agreed to direct an episode. Of course, as this series
starred a Ford stalwart, Ward Bond, and had been spun off from Ford’s 1950
movie Wagonmaster(also starring
Bond), there was a logic here. In fact, to give it scope and get away for a moment from claustrophobic sound stages, Ford used some footage from the 1950 movie, for
example the final shot of the river crossing.Ford wouldn't use Bond's writers: he proposed the original story himself and a certain Tony Paulson wrote it (his only screenplay – did he exist?) But Ford tinkered heavily with it anyway - his handwritten notes on the script survive.It was John Ford, so, as Scott Eyman tells us in his excellent biography of Ford, the director was allowed six days rather than the usual five to shoot the episode. In fact, with his famous ability to 'precut' a film in his head beforehand and have each scene mapped out before shooting started, Ford was the ideal man to do a TV show, though he would never have admitted it. Ford turned in 72 minutes of film in 6 days. There was some discussion about making it a two-parter but the cost-conscious Universal ditched that idea and instead cut fifteen minutes to make it fit into one episode. In a way, John Ford was back at Universal shooting six-day Westerns, just as he had in 1916 and '17.

He went to town on the
53-minute show and drafted in many of his stock company members, even John Wayne, who appears as 'Michael Morris'. Duke has a thirty-second, one-line part
(in suggestive shadow) five minutes before the end as General Sherman. That's because there’s
a long flashback to the Civil War. Two years later, of course, Duke would appear again as Sherman in the meleagrian How The West Was Won. Other well-known Fordians also make appearances.
Hank Worden is a gossiping townsman. John Carradine has a short part as an
exploitative town boss with moronic, loutish sons Ken Curtis and oft-used Ford stuntman and extra Chuck Hayward.

Major Adams with loutish Ken Curtis

Paul Birch is excellent as ‘Sam
Grant’ who turns out to be Ulysses S Grant and promotes Lieutenant Adams to
major on the field of Shiloh. Birch had featured in many B and TV Westerns over
the years (I remember him as the judge in Ford's Two Rode Together).

General Sherman (John Wayne) appears almost ghostly

Ford long wanted to make a
major biographical picture of the life of Grant. The soldier dismissed for
drunkenness who regains glory and becomes President appealed to Ford greatly.
The long shot of Grant meeting his wife and children on the street is very
Fordian. Seth Adams treats scornfully the town rumors and bitter tongues
wagging against Grant in the “folks say” segment of the episode. It’s well
done.

"Folks say..." Charles Seel and Hank Worden

Best of all, though, is
Carleton Young as the eponymous Dr. Colter Craven. Craven indeed, in Major
Adams’s view anyway, for he has turned from the horrors of the field hospital
to the bottle. There are echoes of Thomas Mitchell’s Doc Boone from Stagecoach and in a similar way he
redeems himself (I hope I’m not giving away too much here but I think it’s
pretty predictable) by sobering up and successfully delivering a child. Carleton
Young was a familiar face in Republic Westerns where he was a contract player
(occasionally appearing under the name Gordon Robert) and he became a late
favorite of John Ford. He was the prosecutor in Sergeant Rutledge. It is he who delivers the famous line in The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, "This is the West,
sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Major Adams ponders what to do with drunken Dr. Craven

Ward Bond died in November
1960, just before this episode was aired, so he never saw it.

John Ford, John Wayne and Ward
Bond had a close and sometimes complex relationship. This is the subject of the book Three Bad Men by Scott Allen Nollen, which you can find out about by clicking the link.

Meanwhile, do have a look at
this episode of Wagon Train. It has
real quality.